GPG/PGP Basics

Using gpg for encryption, understanding the basic use of GPG for new users.

Recently someone asked me for a GPG or PGP public key so that
they could send some sensitive material to me by email. I
understood what they meant, but inwardly I groaned because I've
just never had any reason to use public key encryption, and had no
idea how to create the key or decrypt what would be sent back to
me. Looking at "man bgp" on my Linux box didn't make me feel any
better, and a Google search for gpg docs didn't immediately turn up
anything that wasn't techno gobbledy-dee-geek. Eventually (after I
had figured out the basics by trial and error), I did find GNU Privacy Guard
HandBook, which probably would have gotten me up to speed a
little faster, but which still was more than I needed to know at
the moment. This, therefore, is a quick introduction so that you
don't have to get a headache from the man page as I did. After
learning what is presented here, you can visit the GNU page for
more in depth coverage.

Public key, private key

The basic concept is this: You generate a pair of matched keys.
One of these is referred to as your "Public" key, and the other as
"Private". You give the Public key to anyone who asks for it; you
can even publish it on your web site. You keep your Private key
secret, locked up on your own computer. A document (a text or
binary file) can be encrypted using either key, and is decrypted
with the other. The choice of which key to use to encrypt depends
upon your purpose.

For example, if you want to send me something, you'd encrypt it
using my public key. No one else can decrypt it; only my private
key will work. On the other hand, I might be concerned that it
really is you sending me a message. In that case, you'd encrypt
your message using your private key (this is called "signing"). If
I can decrypt it with your public key (presumably I somehow
obtained that key and trust that it really is yours), I know that
the message really came from you.

An example

You can test this all out on one computer using two (or more)
user accounts. I'm going to assume that user "tom" wants to send an
encrypted message to user "marge". The first thing Marge needs to
do is generate her keys:

[marge@apl marge]$ gpg --gen-key
gpg (GnuPG) 1.0.6; Copyright (C) 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions. See the file COPYING for details.
gpg: Warning: using insecure memory!
gpg: /home/marge/.gnupg: directory created
gpg: /home/marge/.gnupg/options: new options file created
gpg: you have to start GnuPG again, so it can read the new options file

Because Marge has never created a key before, gpg just creates
what it needs and tells her to run it again:

[marge@apl marge]$ gpg --gen-key
gpg (GnuPG) 1.0.6; Copyright (C) 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions. See the file COPYING for details.
gpg: Warning: using insecure memory!
gpg: /home/marge/.gnupg/secring.gpg: keyring created
gpg: /home/marge/.gnupg/pubring.gpg: keyring created
Please select what kind of key you want:
(1) DSA and ElGamal (default)
(2) DSA (sign only)
(4) ElGamal (sign and encrypt)
Your selection? 1
DSA keypair will have 1024 bits.
About to generate a new ELG-E keypair.
minimum keysize is 768 bits
default keysize is 1024 bits
highest suggested keysize is 2048 bits
What keysize do you want? (1024)
Requested keysize is 1024 bits
Please specify how long the key should be valid.
0 = key does not expire
<n> = key expires in n days
<n>w = key expires in n weeks
<n>m = key expires in n months
<n>y = key expires in n years
Key is valid for? (0)
Key does not expire at all
Is this correct (y/n)? y
You need a User-ID to identify your key; the software constructs the user id
from Real Name, Comment and Email Address in this form:
"Heinrich Heine (Der Dichter) <[email protected]>"
Real name: Marge
Email address: [email protected]
Comment: Marge's GPG key pair
You selected this USER-ID:
"Marge (Marge's GPG key pair) <[email protected]>"
Change (N)ame, (C)omment, (E)mail or (O)kay/(Q)uit? O
You need a Passphrase to protect your secret key.
Enter passphrase: Sbr6wh wscartBM, iscaa2d
Repeat passphrase: Sbr6wh wscartBM, iscaa2d
We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform
some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, utilize the
disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number
generator a better chance to gain enough entropy.
.+++++++++++++++++++++++++.+++++++++++++++..++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++....++++++++++.++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++.+++++.++++++++++>++++++++++>++++++++++
public and secret key created and signed.

The passphrase entered should be a tough password. It can
contain spaces, there's no limit on its length, but of course you
will need to remember it. I use mnemonic aids to generate passwords
and passphrases. For example, the passphrase above comes from
this:

She'll be riding six white horses when she comes around that
Big Mountain, if she comes at all today

Fairly easy for me to remember, but a good, tough
passphrase.

If you are working on a single-user machine, you probably will
need to switch away and generate some activity to get the keys
created. Once that's done, Marge can list her keys:

Now she's ready to create the public key that she will send to
Tom. We assume for the moment that she has a perfectly secure way
of getting it to Tom so that Tom really knows it came from her; for
example, she physically hands him a CD which has the key on it. She
could also publish it on her web page (there's more information
about how to do that securely at the GNU Privacy Guard page
referenced above) or (more likely), she just emails to him (she
could also use a Public Key Server; see the GNU page for more on
that). Email is not completely unreasonable: it doesn't matter if
someone else intercepts and reads that email, because all it
contains is the public key. That key is only useful for sending
documents that Marge (and only Marge) can decrypt; stealing it does
not let you impersonate Marge. What Tom has to be concerned about
is someone forging email that pretends to be from Marge but that
actually contains a forged public key: if Tom used that to encrypt
his data, and the forger could intercept that transmission also,
the forger could decrypt the data (and of course Marge could not!).
So what Tom probably should do (if he's really worried about this)
is call Marge on the telephone and ask her to read some of her
key.

What Tom did was add Marge to his "trusted" keys- keys that he
is sure came from who they were supposed to. As I said, it's not
absolutely necessary, and you can read more about it at the GNU
Privacy Guard Page.

Apparently, Alice and Bob are names commonly used for this sort of article. I didn't know that when I wrote it.
See http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/A/Alice-and-Bob.html and http://www.conceptlabs.co.uk/alicebob.html

--TonyLawrence

______________________________

This page is a nice short howto for using GNUPG. I feel, however,
that some points need clarification, as it is sensitive/personal
data that are being dealt with here:

1. The part about publishing one's public key contains a
rather misleading and potentially dangerous passage, as it
may create a false sense of security:

"Email is not completely unreasonable: it doesn't matter if
someone else intercepts and reads that email, because all it
contains is the public key. That key is only useful for sending
documents that Marge (and only Marge) can decrypt; stealing it
does not let you impersonate Marge."
This is not entirely true; there's always the possibility of a
"Man-in-the-Middle" Attack. Have a look at
http://www.glump.net/content/gpg_intro/html/3_Creating_Your_Personal.html#foot311
to see what I mean. Of course, this might be viewed as paranoia,
but it's still a consideration, for users who want to take no
chances.

[ I guess that's what is meant, in the passage immediately after
the one above:
"What Tom has to be concerned about is someone forging email that
pretends to be from Marge but that actually contains a forged
public key: if Tom used that to encrypt his data, and the forger
could intercept that transmission also, the forger could decrypt
the data (and of course Marge could not!)."
but it's not clear enough, IMHO -- the explanation should be more
detailed, as in the link above. ]

Also, the guide at
http://www.glump.net/content/gpg_intro/ (the above URL), which is
entitled "A Practical Introduction to GNU Privacy Guard in Windows",
is an excellent geekspeak-free guide for GPG, not only for MS-Windows.

2. The passage:

"So what Tom probably should do (if he's really worried about this)
is call Marge on the telephone and ask her to read some of her key."
describes a practice that's neither easy, nor the commonly employed;
it would be much better if the key's *fingerprint* would be verified
by both of the parties. This is the easiest and safest way of
verifying keys which were obtained via an insecure means.

3. The part between:

"Tom has done all that he really needs to do. The next step is
recommended but not strictly necessary:" and
"What Tom did was add Marge to his 'trusted' keys- keys that he is
sure came from who they were supposed to."
is not correct. A user signs a public key, to show *others* that s/he
trusts it (add an extra bit of validity to that key); this possibly
also involves the participation in a *web of trust* -- see
http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual.html#AEN533 .
In order to show *him/herself* s/he trusts a key (so s/he will be
able to use it with GPG without any security prompts), one has to set
the trust level on this key. See
http://www.glump.net/content/gpg_intro/html/4_Encrypting_Decrypting_Fil.html#SECTION00530000000000000000
(4.3.1 Importing the key).

--Doryforos (visitor)

Sat Dec 10 01:09:08 2005: 1423 anonymous

Awesome short summary. Just enough for me to remember how to use it. Thank you for post it!

Tue Feb 14 20:07:24 2006: 1641 anonymous

Short and precise composition of GPG/PGP files.Wonderful!

Wed Mar 15 20:50:39 2006: 1794 anonymous

Thanks, followed the steps and was immediately productive. Thanks!

Fri Jun 16 21:05:13 2006: 2124 CBZ

Very nice. Thank-you!

Mon Nov 20 08:58:00 2006: 2632 vidyasagarcognizantcom

Nice. I was trying some thing more and i got stuck.
What i did was i created the public keys and exported it to a file(ex. pkeys.asc). I wanted gpg to use this keyring and not to use the default key ring. I used gpg --armor --batch --encrypt --keyring pkeys.asc --no-default-keyring --recipient user5 1.txt and i am getting errors. It says,
gpg: user5: skipped: public key not found
gpg: 1.txt: encryption failed: public key not found

But when i list the keys it is showing the keys in its default keyring.
If any one knows how to do this please say to me. I am not getting help for this anywhere

Wed Jul 4 16:59:30 2007: 3052 anonymous

This tutorial is among the finest there are in the UNIX/Linux world. The combination of readability and accuracy is perfect. I got my key generated and started encrypting/decrypting in 10 minutes. Some day all of the useless MAN pages will be tossed in favor of material like this. Mr. or Ms. Lawrence, we salute you.

No. A signature is a computed summary binary string that uniquely identifies the sender's key, and the content of the email, by creating a validity sum. Usually a sign for a message is only a few 72-char lines long, and it is usually placed in a block near the end of the email. I'm sure that you can edit this article, and put a non-technical explanation of "signing" that is just as correct as what I suggested in my comment.

The only other correction that I would suggest is to explain that you cannot swap your keypair around, making key one public at will, and making the other key private, and then encrypt with the private key. The public key is always the one that you make public, and the private key is always the one that you keep private.

In fact, if you don't get the public key for the person receiving the email, then you cannot encrypt an email to them. This is also true for the person sending email to you - if they don't have your public key, then they can't send you encrypted email.

How do you exchange public keys? Either directly, sending them to each other... or by putting your public key on a "keyserver". You could write another article about keyservers, or you could quickly describe it as a bulletin board on the internet where lots of people put their public keys.

While your article is very good, there are a couple of points that you really "glossed over" at a very high level... so much so that your story of encrypting with your private key and the receiver decrypting with a public key is in error.

Peace, and good will.

Wed Feb 20 03:14:02 2008: 3680 TonyLawrence

Peace to you also, but I have to disagree. The point of signing is as I explained: to prove that the message in fact came from you.

I did not suggest that you "swap keys around" - the point of that section is that I'd use YOUR public key to send you something that I want only you to be able to decript, but you'd use your private key in the "signing" situation.

Wed Feb 20 14:35:08 2008: 3681 TonyLawrence

By the way:

The reason I wrote this page was because I found other web resources confusing. That doesn't mean that they aren't well written: they probably are for a person at a certain level of knowledge and understanding.

That's the thing, really: we all come at things from different starting points. For some people my post here is too basic, for others it is way over their heads. For some, apparently, it's right on the mark.

That's why I encourage people to leave comments or to even submit a whole new article explaining things from *your* perspective ( see (link) for more on that). How *you* explain something may be exactly what someone else needs.

Sun Mar 9 03:14:09 2008: 3821 JonR

This is the first time I've understood clearly how GPG basically works. I use it to encrypt my own files, but I've never had to use it to communicate, and would have been at a loss. Now I know how to do that. Regardless of whether some points are debatable, the main ideas behind GPG come through and for average users I think that finding this page will be a memorable event. Thanks very much.

Sun Mar 9 11:49:28 2008: 3823 TonyLawrence

Thank you, Jon and I'm glad it helped you. That's what it's all about - getting our heads pointed in the right direction.

Wed Mar 26 20:56:08 2008: 3904 Arjay

Thanks for an easy to understand article! This is all I needed to use gpg.

Mon Jul 7 19:53:22 2008: 4396 anonymous

In addition to the Alice & Bob names, Eve is also used when speaking about "mitm", or man-in-the-middle. You almost got into this topic when you mentioned someone sending Tom a false public key, pretending to be Marge. Eve, as the eavesdropper, would send Tom a false public key. Tom would encrypt using this false key, Eve would intercept the message, de-crypt it with her private key from the pair that she gave to Tom, and then possibly modify the message and encrypt it with Marge's real public key, and send it along to Marge, assuming Eve could trick Marge as she tricked Tom. Eve is the "(wo)man in the middle" of the conversation.

Mon Jul 7 20:20:40 2008: 4397 JonR

I happen to have been reading a couple of books recently that deal directly or indirectly with cryptography, and as a result my mind keeps coming back to the one absolutely unbreakable crypto method: the one-time pad. If only that system could be made practical, there would be absolute security, subject to the limitation of identity fraud. Even a quantum computer could not break a message encrypted with a one-time pad. The big difficulty, and what makes it impractical to use the method on anything but a very small scale, is getting the page(s) containing the key to the recipient. It sends the users right back to square one.

Tue Sep 22 15:55:33 2009: 6953 Jai

Very cool and simple explanation of GPG .

Tue Nov 10 22:27:07 2009: 7517 Jayakumar

Really simple to understand in a single page!!! Nice one.

Thu Nov 12 11:15:02 2009: 7532 senthil

really goood

Thu Nov 26 15:00:22 2009: 7632 Merovance

Thank you. Your article fit me to a T. I appreciate you taking the time to help newbies.

Thu Nov 26 15:10:03 2009: 7633 TonyLawrence

Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment. We appreciate it!

Thu Jan 7 20:48:29 2010: 7887 MitulThakkar

Great Article!! I was struggling to get the relevant info on web, but for a person like me who has very basic knowledge of security , other articles were too heavy.. This is the best one I have seen so far..

Thank you very much for giving us explanation of gpg

Sun Jan 17 20:57:38 2010: 7921 ratb0y

just wanned to say this is a very good tutorial that saves you from loads of troubles. I found it pretty easy and on target.

Congrats

Wed Jan 27 23:26:21 2010: 7958 anonymous

Thank you for writing such a nice and easy to read tutorial.
Keep up.

Wed Feb 24 08:56:01 2010: 8129 Mark

The bit of confusion about what it means to sign a message is the difference between "sign" (which includes message encryption) and "clearsign" (which does NOT encrypt the message; it uses your private key to create a hash which can then be decrypted by your public key; the message text remains in the clear). The confusion happens because a clearsigned email begins with the line "-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----". Just my 2 cents.

Wed May 5 19:02:21 2010: 8525 sunny

Hi i am struggling in generating keys in windows server 2008.
The username is sunny, so how can i modify this "[marge@apl marge]$ gpg --gen-key". what does ' marge@apl ' means. please help me.

i have generated my keys and want to export my public key. i tried this command "gpg --armor --export [email protected] > mypk"
nothing comes up but when i try this "gpg --armor --export [email protected]" public key block starts and ends with some code in it.
what is the command to export it onto C drive.

can i do a quick test by using my public key to encrypt a file without exporting.

If some one sends me the public key, what will be the file extension? and in order to import it do i have keep in specific directory?
i came across a .asc extension file what is this? In what format does the exported keys will be?

please help me.

Tue May 11 14:18:33 2010: 8585 TonyLawrence

The "> mypk" put the key in a file called "mypk", in whatever directory you are working in.

You could make that any name you like if your brain dead operating system requires such. For example, to have that able to be opened by clicking on it, you'd use "mypk.txt"

Just another example of why Windows is dumb. You won't understand why I say that, but that's reality.

Fri May 14 01:16:03 2010: 8589 anonymous

I didn't know GPG. But after reading your article, I know at least 95% how it works. this is very good explanation.

Mon Jul 26 18:34:36 2010: 8858 Sunny

hi

we got my legacy company publi key. My admin imported that and when he run the command " gpg --list-keys " he is able to see it. But when i run the same command i am not able to do it?
Are these keys user specific or role specific?

Thanks

Sat Aug 28 08:40:01 2010: 8938 habbay

It can't be explained simpler than this. A great job done!

Tue Aug 31 18:11:54 2010: 8944 anonymous

thanks tony, exactly what I needed, very helpful, egon

Thu Sep 23 21:21:09 2010: 8995 ADubey

Mr. Lawrence, thanks for the excellent documentation.
This really helped me set up my encryption.

My issue is that I am trying to automate a process to extract data from an Oracle View, write it to a csv file, encrypt the file and FTP it to our bank.
I am calling these procedures from an ASPX Web Application using VB.Net.

I set up the encryption with a specific User account used for Service Accounts.

When I run the Web Application and call gpg.exe to encrypt the data file, it will work fine as long as I am logged in as the service account and am in the debug mode of Visual Studio Web Developer.

When I then try to run the Web app from IE, the encryption fails. I have not been able to trap the exact results to determine any messages.

When I call gpg.exe I am using a Process that allows me to pass the Service account credentials. Equivalent to "Run As".
This does not solve the problem.

I have tried calling a batch file to launch the gpg. Same result.
I tried creating a scheduled task to run a VBS script using the Service account credentials. Again same result.

The only way I can get it to work, is to be logged in to the IIS Server (Windows 2008 64 bit with IIS 7.) and running the Web Application in debug mode from Visual Studio.
Anytime I run it from IE, it fails.

I have set the credentials in IIS for the site to be the Service Account.

My next step is to change the IIS Services account from Local Service to the Domain Service account.
(For some reason, I have not been able to get Windows Server to accept the different credentials. The service account is a local admin.)
I have tried setting the GNUPGHOME to the Service Accounts GNUGP folder. Still not luck.

Below is a sample of the Batch file I am using to launch gpg.exe.
(I have also tried to launch gpg.exe directly from the process. This is just a good example of my syntax.)

i must be a slow-witted person because i STILL don't know how to get started using gpg. how do i unzip a .tar file to get to do the gpg?

Sat Oct 6 11:16:45 2012: 11367 TonyLawrence

You aren't slow witted - nothing here told you how to unpack a tar file.

You might have tried googling "tar" though..

By the way, "zip" implies compression. A tar file CAN be compressed, but tar by itself is just an archiver. Modern tars know how to use external compression tools, though, so the point is usually unimportant.

To unpack (and uncompress if indicated) do

tar xvf whateverthefileis.tar

or

tar xvf whateverthefileis.tgz if it's been zipped.

Sat Oct 20 14:02:59 2012: 11392 Michael

Hi. I followed the instructions here, including importing the public key. Yet when I try to decrypt a file I receive the message "gpg: decryption failed: secret key not available". I'm confused. The recipient of the public key does not have to have both public and private keys, correct? Any suggestions for correcting this problem?
Thanks.

Thanks for for your response. I did get your example to work. Thanks. Here is our situation: a bank has generated the private/public gpg keys. They sent the public key to us. We successfully imported that key. Are we correct that we should now be able to decrypt a file that the bank encrypts and send to us? If we will not send encrypted files, we do not have to generate keys. Do we understand this correctly? Thank you!

Sun Oct 21 11:36:05 2012: 11395 TonyLawrence

Yes, and vice versa. As I said above:

For example, if you want to send me something, you'd encrypt it using my public key. No one else can decrypt it; only my private key will work. On the other hand, I might be concerned that it really is you sending me a message. In that case, you'd encrypt your message using your private key (this is called "signing"). If I can decrypt it with your public key (presumably I somehow obtained that key and trust that it really is yours), I know that the message really came from you.

Tue Jan 1 07:50:38 2013: 11642 RajeshRS

I have been trying to understand GPG working for the past 4 hours. There have not been a single website, including the so-called official documentation, which could say in simple terms about how we can implement things using GPG. If these "official" sites want their product/concepts reach people they should put things in a simplest way possible.

And your page on GPG is simply the best I have come across on this topic, as far as a starter is concerned. I really wish this page finds a place in the official documentation. Nothing more to say. Hats Off ..!

Fri Mar 22 11:45:05 2013: 11987 voit

A little OT: can a wise person enlighten me and explain what that part of gpg output means:

generator a better chance to gain enough entropy. .+++++++++++++++++++++++++.+++++++++++++++..++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++....++++++++++.++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++.+++++.++++++++++>++++++++++>++++++++++ public and secret key created and signed.

I am very curious, but I can not find any information about it in the net.

Fri Apr 5 18:01:49 2013: 12004 ClovisSangrail

WRTO comment from doryforos, below:

What is a fingerprint? How do you make it? how do you use it? How do you get someone's fingerprint securely? How do you verify that the fingerprint was not forged?

A great way to provide explanations that help no-one is to use undefined terms in your explanations. Boy, does that SCREW OVER the Reader who is trying to learn. You slip it in. The Reader reads it & keeps going, typically not even realizing that they no longer understands what they are reading (because that next word, the one after the undefined term, is so temptingly near by) and after a few more logical steps that depend on the knowledge of the undefined term and thus make perfect sense to you but no sense at all to the person you are trying to teach (because HE DOES NOT KNOW THAT DEFINITION), the Reader realizes they have no idea what they are reading. That's now you create those headaches Mr. Lawrence mentioned.

This tutorial is the ONLY place that actually defined the term "signing" for me! Go back and look at it! It's simple, and it illustrates how it is backwards from the usual:

BTW, if I click [preview], see typos, and follow your website's advice to use my browser's [back] button, the comment has a very marked tendency to vanish as soon as I click on the dialog box. Thankfully it occured to me to click my browser's [forward] button, and use <ctrl/c> on the preview.

Thu Jun 20 17:43:50 2013: 12140 anonymous

Thanks for you tutorial, you put me out of a hole.

Wed Jun 26 21:48:42 2013: 12163 PradeepJ

Clear explanation. Awesome article :)

Thu Aug 1 19:02:30 2013: 12248 Anna

Thanks a lot, this is very helpful to a newbie!

Wed Oct 2 07:38:35 2013: 12330 DebapriyaMukherjee

Sir,

I tried the whole procedure in our AIX server.It worked perfectly.
I am grateful to you for this nice article.
I am now confident and saved my own excel in google docs forever.

Thanks ..

Mon Nov 11 22:20:13 2013: 12361 anonymous

no offense, but you are the fu*&ing sh!t dude, this si the best thing ever, understood it so easily. thank you very much.

Fri Feb 21 00:39:26 2014: 12420 kshields

Very nice! An excellent example for us newbies that gets you thru the basics step-by-step. Thanks for posting this!

Sat Jun 28 18:29:53 2014: 12497 anonymous

Signing a message or file that you are sending has a different process and purpose than signing someone's public key does. The guide describes the two, but the difference isn't noted.

Signing a message or file that you are sending to someone is done with your private key by the "--sign" or "--clearsign" options. It lets a receiver use your public key to verify that your message was not altered in transport and that it was signed by whomever has the corresponding private key (imperatively, only you do). However, signing your message does not encrypt it. It calculates a small hash of your message, encrypts the hash with your private key, and writes that encrypted hash as a few lines of random text at the very end of your message. The "--sign" option outputs the signature in binary, and the "--clearsign" option outputs the signature in plain ASCII text which is more compatible with different programs. A message can be signed, encrypted, or both. Before being sent, messages can be encrypted by the receiver's public key and signed by the sender's private key. After being received, messages can be decrypted by the receiver's private key and have their signature verified by the sender's public key.

In the "not strictly necessary" part, the guide uses "--edit-key" to sign someone else's public key. Signing someone's public key gives that public key more veracity and trust. It's like how showing your birth certificate would add veracity to your claim of identity when registering for a government service. In fact, people who use public keys sometimes have key-signing parties where they all meet in person with their own forms of third-party identification. If they trust your identification, they sign your public key. (This can be done at any place where they meet in person like at conventions or business meetings.) After the other people have signed the same copy of your public key, you can upload that public key to a keyserver for anyone to find. When people retrieve your public key, they will see all of the PGP signatures of those who have signed it. In this way, individuals can use PGP to form a "web of trust" which exists independently of centralized hierarchical certificate authorities (CA's) used by some other methods of encryption. (CA's are mostly corporations that verify identities and sign keys for a price.)

Wed Oct 29 09:39:26 2014: 12540 anonymous

At last! A non-geeky easy to understand description of the process. Thank you.

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